The chauffeur slid into the driver's seat, and the heavy, pressurized thud of his door closing pulled me back from the edge of a daze. I felt a sudden, sharp pinch of guilt at holding him up, a reflex from a life where I was still a person with places to be and people to respect. I buckled my seatbelt hurriedly, the click of the buckle sounding unnervingly loud in the silent cabin.
"Where are we going?" I asked, my voice barely rising above the hum of the climate control.
"Mr. Jason is here in Ohio today," the driver said, shifting the car into drive with a seamless motion. "The office is not far."
Mr. Jason. No last name. No title. Just a name that sounded too casual for a man who sent limousines to hospital bays. I didn't have the energy to press for more. The fawn leather seemed to mold itself to every aching muscle in my back, and I surrendered to its embrace, letting a heavy, bone-deep exhaustion settle over me like a thick wool blanket. It was easier to sink into the warmth and let my fears drift into a temporary sleep as the glass and steel buildings of Cleveland passed by the tinted windows in a dark, expensive blur.
I roused myself from the lethargy as we passed the Inner Harbor, the gray water of Lake Erie flickering between the gaps in the architecture. The car swung up one of the side streets, the engine purring as it climbed the slight incline. In a heartbeat, the driver pulled up to the curb and sprang out with a speed that defied his formal uniform. He swung my door open before I had time to do more than unbuckle and gather my jacket against my chest.
"Top floor, Ms. Amanda," he said, giving me a fractional, elegant bow.
A bow? Really? I felt like an imposter in my own life.
"Thank you," I managed to stutter, the words feeling awkward and clumsy as I stepped out onto the sidewalk.
The building that towered over me was a relic of a grander era. Half columns of white marble flanked high, arched windows, standing like sentinels before the architecture defaulted to soot stained red brick on the upper floors. Great stone letters carved into the frieze were darkened with a century of city grime: FIRST BANK OF OHIO. I knew enough local history to know that no such bank had existed in my lifetime, and there was no plaque or modern signage to indicate what the building had become.
It didn't look like a clinic. It didn't look like a biotech firm or a research hospital. But I told myself it had to be one of them. What else could possibly help a girl who was already halfway to the grave?
I climbed the six white steps to the brass double doors, noting the address etched in gold letters on the glass of the transom above. Heavy linen shades shrouded the glass from the inside, keeping the building's secrets hidden from the street. The right door was heavy, yielding reluctantly to my pull, and I stepped inside.
I found myself standing in a lobby that breathed wealth, the kind of wealth that doesn't need to shout. It was a cathedral of marble, accented with gleaming brass pots and burnished mahogany that glowed under soft, recessed lighting. Each of the great windows had a shade drawn tightly over it, shutting out the mundane reality of Cleveland and cutting the building off from the rest of the world.
Elegant people dressed in razor sharp suits strode across the polished floor, their footsteps echoing softly. They spoke in low, urgent tones in the shadows of potted ficus groves, their faces set in expressions of intense focus. None of them spared me so much as a glance. Among the sea of tailored pencil skirts and expensive silk ties, my oversized sweater and faded jeans felt glaringly out of place, a smudge of reality on a perfect canvas.
I'd had an internship with the corporate arm of an insurance company the summer before, and it had been nothing like this. That had been cubicles, fluorescent lights, and the smell of burnt coffee. This was a scene from a high budget film not a real office, but the Hollywood ideal of one. Everyone was just a little too attractive, just a little too put together, and every surface was just a little too polished. It was a world that felt just a little too perfect to be entirely natural.
I clutched my jacket tighter, feeling the weight of the card in my pocket, and headed toward the elevators. If the answer to my death was hidden in this fortress, I was going to find it.